Post by anonomie on Aug 3, 2004 4:04:46 GMT -5
I am having a bit of a situation here. I am dating a wonderful guy who I fell hopelessly in love with a year ago. We have been together for about a year/year and a half. But I am having some second thoughts. For instance, neither of us is perfect, but I thought we sort of had accepted each other. He is super anal and efficient and I am more of a free-spirited and follow your gut type of person.
The situation at hand is to be perfectly honest, involves the fact that I tend to be late, although it has improved somewhat. Anyway, he had a business trip. He told me he’d be back by like Tuesday or Wednesday (seemed odd to me). The week goes by and Tuesday arrives. He calls and asks if I have time to come and get him (I am visiting my mom and hour away from the airport he’s scheduled to arrive at). I had a crap-load of work to do for a class, but I thought picking him up would help me study better since the airport is closer to the university than my mom’s house is. I arrived at the airport 15 minutes late (of course my fault). However, I got lost and confused by the directions he gave me so by the time I found the place it had been an hour. He carries no cell phone so I couldn’t call to tell him I was running late. I continued to circle the airport for 45 minutes because it’s a big circular one-way street airport with lots of traffic.
I finally gave up and head home and on the way home he calls from our apartment. I was so furious I didn’t answer. When I got home, I said nothing. Then he starts yelling. “Why are you angry?!” I was calm the whole time because I decided I would not allow him to make me lose my cool since I really wanted to talk about the communication problem, not attack each other as it usually ends up (or at least it feels that way). I just told him honestly that he could have called so that I wouldn’t have wasted a good 1 hour (2 if you count the drive from my mother’s house). He stomped around the apartment pissed off, then quickly left.
Obviously we both were wrong to some extent, but I was considering spending the rest of my life with this person. However, I am finding that when conflict arises, he chooses to handle things in a passive-aggressive way as outlined in the story about the airport, except usually, I end up defending myself and taking ALL the responsibility. I try to talk about the PROBLEM, not attack him, but he projects that into the argument and I have to defend myself and in short say, no, I’m not attacking YOU, I’m just pissed about the INCIDENT. The best part is he can NEVER apologize, he just waits a few days and then has this sad-puppy dog look and then acts real docile and the body language says, I’m sorry, but he can never just TALK about it. It’s just so frustrating because I prefer COMMUNICATION…I mean, what are we, ANIMALS? Can’t we open our mouths and discuss the problem like adults. Basically, I’m wondering if it’s worth it to continue on with someone who seems to be engaging in behavior that feels like adolescent girl cat-fight back-stabbing. Has any one else experienced this? How do you deal with a passive-aggressive person like this? Is there hope? I never talk about this kind of stuff online or with “strangers,” but I am so sick of thinking about this that it had to come out.
The situation at hand is to be perfectly honest, involves the fact that I tend to be late, although it has improved somewhat. Anyway, he had a business trip. He told me he’d be back by like Tuesday or Wednesday (seemed odd to me). The week goes by and Tuesday arrives. He calls and asks if I have time to come and get him (I am visiting my mom and hour away from the airport he’s scheduled to arrive at). I had a crap-load of work to do for a class, but I thought picking him up would help me study better since the airport is closer to the university than my mom’s house is. I arrived at the airport 15 minutes late (of course my fault). However, I got lost and confused by the directions he gave me so by the time I found the place it had been an hour. He carries no cell phone so I couldn’t call to tell him I was running late. I continued to circle the airport for 45 minutes because it’s a big circular one-way street airport with lots of traffic.
I finally gave up and head home and on the way home he calls from our apartment. I was so furious I didn’t answer. When I got home, I said nothing. Then he starts yelling. “Why are you angry?!” I was calm the whole time because I decided I would not allow him to make me lose my cool since I really wanted to talk about the communication problem, not attack each other as it usually ends up (or at least it feels that way). I just told him honestly that he could have called so that I wouldn’t have wasted a good 1 hour (2 if you count the drive from my mother’s house). He stomped around the apartment pissed off, then quickly left.
Obviously we both were wrong to some extent, but I was considering spending the rest of my life with this person. However, I am finding that when conflict arises, he chooses to handle things in a passive-aggressive way as outlined in the story about the airport, except usually, I end up defending myself and taking ALL the responsibility. I try to talk about the PROBLEM, not attack him, but he projects that into the argument and I have to defend myself and in short say, no, I’m not attacking YOU, I’m just pissed about the INCIDENT. The best part is he can NEVER apologize, he just waits a few days and then has this sad-puppy dog look and then acts real docile and the body language says, I’m sorry, but he can never just TALK about it. It’s just so frustrating because I prefer COMMUNICATION…I mean, what are we, ANIMALS? Can’t we open our mouths and discuss the problem like adults. Basically, I’m wondering if it’s worth it to continue on with someone who seems to be engaging in behavior that feels like adolescent girl cat-fight back-stabbing. Has any one else experienced this? How do you deal with a passive-aggressive person like this? Is there hope? I never talk about this kind of stuff online or with “strangers,” but I am so sick of thinking about this that it had to come out.
